ription it was impossible to misread. Suppose that this
mysterious person was fully cognizant of the family secrets of the
Darringtons? Suppose that he knew that Mrs. Brentano and her daughter
would inherit a large fortune, if Gen'l Darrington died intestate? If
he had wooed and won the heart of the daughter, and believed that her
rights had been sacrificed to promote the aggrandizement of an alien,
the adopted step-son Prince, had not such a man, the accepted lover of
the daughter, a personal interest in the provisions of a will which
disinherited Mrs. Brentano, and her child? Have you not now, motive,
means, and opportunity, and links of evidence that point to this man as
the real agent, the guilty author of the awful crime we are all leagued
in solemn, legal covenant to punish? Suppose that fully aware of the
prisoner's mission to X--, he had secretly followed her, and
supplemented her afternoon visit, by the fatal interview of the night?
Doubtless he had intended escorting her home, but when the frightful
tragedy was completed, the curse of Cain drove him, in terror, to
instant flight; and he sought safety in western wilds, leaving his
innocent and hapless betrothed to bear the penalty of his crime. The
handkerchief used to administer chloroform, bore her initials; was
doubtless a souvenir given in days gone by to that unworthy miscreant,
as a token of affection, by the trusting woman he deserted in the hour
of peril. In this solution of an awful enigma, is there an undue strain
upon credylity; is there any antagonism of facts which the torn
envelope, the pipe, the twenty-dollar gold pieces in Pennsylvania, do
not reconcile?

"A justly celebrated writer on the law of evidence has wisely said: 'In
criminal cases, the statement made by the accused is of essential
importance in some points of view. Such is the complexity of human
affairs, and so infinite the combinations of circumstances, that the
true hypothesis which is capable of explaining and reuniting all the
apparently conflicting circumstances of the case, may escape the
acutest penetration: but the prisoner, so far as he alone is concerned,
can always afford a clue to them; and though he may be unable to
support his statement by evidence, his account of the transaction is,
for this purpose, always most material and important. The effect may be
to suggest a view, which consists with the innocence of the accused,
and might otherwise have escaped observation.'